Comparative Confirmation and the Problem of Evil

In Jake Chandler & Victoria S. Harrison (eds.), Probability in the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford University Press UK. pp. 127 (2012)
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Abstract

In this chapter probability and confirmation theory are used to investigate the problem of evil, concentrating on whether a theist should consider our ignorance of a good reason for God to permit evil to support a non-religious alternative over a typical theist's beliefs. It is argued that according to Likelihoodism, our ignorance of a good reason does not favor a competing hypothesis over the religious view that there is an incomprehensible good reason for God to permit evil. Bayesian accounts of comparative confirmation, which are alternatives to Likelihoodism, have the same result. Furthermore, according to both Likelihoodism and Bayesian accounts of contrastive confirmation, our ignorance of a good reason for God to permit evil may actually support typical religious beliefs over the alternative hypotheses.

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Richard Otte
University of California, Santa Cruz

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Sceptical Theism and the Paradox of Evil.Luis R. G. Oliveira - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (2):319-333.

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